


The Grey Fairy

by Smith_of_Smith_Lane



Category: Sleeping Beauty - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-04-23 00:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22228012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smith_of_Smith_Lane/pseuds/Smith_of_Smith_Lane
Summary: This is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, told from the point of view of the villain of the original story (named Grey here). It explains what she thinks of everything that is happening, her motivations behind what she does, and how her tale ends.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	The Grey Fairy

Where I live, you are named after colours. In many ways, you become a colour.  
Take me, for example. I was named after grey. And so far in my immortal life I have been angry and stormy, essentially killed an innocent princess and brought grief to the royal family. So you may say that my name was apt for me. Or you could also say that my name made me.  
Most people condemn me as a wicked villain, a murderer. But I wonder if you can be anything else besides a callous murderer, or if indeed it was entirely my fault that I became a murderer at all. Not even I am sure. But one day I might be judged, and if the judge took into account all the facts of my sorry life, what judgement would they give?  
Today, you reader can be the judge. Here is my testimony.

Societies sometimes have to have odd rules so they can function. Our society’s odd rule is that everyone has to be named after a colour, and then in many ways become that colour. Our eyes and hair are changed to our name colours, and our clothing comprises solely of that one colour. I think the rule was made for purposes of identification and order, and maybe for fairness. But it actually worked out in a hugely unfair way for me.  
When I was born, my mother and father took me to the naming tent where an attendant flipped through a book in which all the colours were listed to make up the names of the population. The book had been around for hundreds of years, and when all the names were taken it meant that the population was full and the adults needed to stop having children. If this hadn’t happened, there would be no story, no testimony. I was taken to the tent and the attendant looked through all the pages in the book and then scratched her head and said with an apologetic tone in her voice that the only name left for me was Grey. In a bath of magical water inside the tent the bathing attendant bled all the colour out of my eyes and hair and replaced them with dull grey. I was given grey clothes to wear. After that I was Grey, through and through.

That may not have been the problem in itself. Or rather, if it was the problem, the peoples’ reaction to the problem caused more of a problem than the actual problem. As I looked drab and rather horrible I was dismissed in a world that valued nature and flowers. There was no grey plant, or at least no grey plant that people liked. As so much of you was the same as your colour, everything about you and your colour began to be viewed as synonymous. People hated grey, therefore they hated me.  
And in some ways, you could hardly blame the girls I went to school with. If you could choose to befriend someone who was bright and pretty rather than grey and ugly, especially on the first day of school when you had no idea of anyone’s character, why wouldn’t you? The trouble was, everyone seemed to think that way and so I had no friends. Then there was a certain pleasure to be derived in mocking me so my peers did that as well. I was quite an angry, feisty person who didn’t take well to being bullied so I shouted at them and used the small charms we learnt in class against them. They were upset as they hadn’t grasped them as quickly as me and couldn’t use them back, so they truly started to hate me. Our playground felt like me and them - separate entities in the same space that wanted to repel each other but couldn’t, which made us despise each other still more.

Perhaps I sound just as bad as my fellow students were, but it didn’t feel like that to me. Their parents taught them to despise all signs of grey, a sign of rot in plants. As grey personified, everyone despised me. The adults snubbed and avoided me. My parents were disappointed in me. I was the only person with such a horrible colour, for when other babies were born some older folk had died or moved away and the babies could take the now empty, pleasanter names instead, leaving me alone in my nastiness. I may have been able to hold my own against the school on my first day, but then the teachers forbade me to use magic in school, and outside school most of the adults were more proficient than I. Anyway, the whole village was against me, and even though I was a talented student, I could never be stronger than a village of magic folk.Everyone told themselves it was okay to bully me because everyone else did, even if they were kind people otherwise. I brought it upon myself for being despicable, they thought. But they had brought my despicableness upon me. Before I was the villain I was the victim.

In my sixteenth year (fairly grown up, though very young for an immortal being) the whole world seemed to be in uproar because the human king and queen had given birth to a princess that would be the heir of the human kingdom: Aurora. I was indifferent, until our class at school started preparing blessings to bestow on the baby at her christening. It was interesting work and I was pleased to be able to give someone something that would be really appreciated. To someone, at least, I wouldn’t be useless and could use my powers for good instead of for self defence. I loved my power - it was the only thing I had so I clung to it: nurturing and developing it like the gardeners cultivating their plants. I’d now been at school for many years and my magic had finally grown and would sprout fruit at the christening. I practised my blessing as often as I could, as I had nothing much to do otherwise, being unwelcome everywhere. My blessing would give Aurora the undying love of the man that would be her husband - a love that she would requite. It was a gift I would have gobbled up and swallowed whole if I could, but as it was I was used to being unloved so there was no change for the worse. Therefore I looked forward to the christening with pleasure.

On the day of the christening I had a fairly normal affliction of vanity, in a crisis that my clothes were not good enough for a royal court - a fairly standard problem among youth, I dare say. I managed to calm down and flew to school in high spirits, to depart with my class to the palace. When I arrived, the teacher was handing out invitations.  
“You need these invitations to be able to enter the palace,” she said.  
I waited to receive my invitation, expectant. But the teacher hesitated in front of me. “There’s no invitation for you,” she said , leafing through her pile. “You haven’t been invited.”  
Everything seemed to go quiet and still around me. The sudden intake of breath sparked flames in my insides. I though of the pain as a blade sharpening in my bones. I had to fight for myself,  
“Why not?” I asked calmly. The teacher snorted. “I’d guess it’s because they don’t want the presence of an ugly brat such as yourself to be a constant blight upon the christening,” she said.  
Water may have clogged up my ears for all I could understand what she was saying. Everything felt foggy as I looked around helplessly. Then the mist cleared and with a startling, beautiful clarity I saw the whole situation as differently as two blooms on the same plant.  
I laughed hollowly, the sound of my blade colliding with the teacher’s. “It’s a trick. You’re tricking me so I won’t go, even though I want to. Unfortunately for you, I’m not that foolish.”  
“I’d say it was rather foolish to go where you’re not wanted, don’t you agree, girls?” There was a chorus of assent; battle cries.  
“People like me have to fight for what people like you take for granted. And if I didn’t go where I wasn’t wanted I’d have nowhere to go, and I have to be somewhere. Even if I died, which I’m sure you’d all love, my corpse would still take up space.”  
The teacher merely shrugged. “Come with us, if you wish. You’ll just be turned away at the door.”  
This was not quite the response I had hoped for, but at least I could still go to the palace and explain my case. Doubtless I’d been missed off some list out of spite, but I was sure the king and queen, said to be benevolent rulers, would take pity on me and invite me in anyway.  
The sky was shining blue, but I’m surprised that our class didn’t make it rain with our bad moods. I don’t think my peers expected me to come with them to the christening and they were annoyed that I was. I felt their misery and it brewed up storms inside me. Now the only motivation I had for getting inside the palace and saying my blessing was to spite them all.

The palace was a great stone structure that looked to me almost like a monster, with glinting yellow windows for eyes and a gaping door for a mouth. I was grimly determined, but also frightened of approaching the armoured guard at the entrance; the weapons at his belt looked quite cruel and unnecessary to me.  
I think he was supposed to act in a polite, jovial manner to all the guests but didn’t care if you weren’t a guest, for the silky tone vanished from his voice and his smile faded and reappeared triumphantly on the other fairies’ faces when I said I didn’t have an invitation.  
“You need an invitation to attend the christening,” he said, his manner now brusque. His words felt like a door slamming right in my face. But I had to continue to fight for myself, otherwise I’d never get what I wanted.   
“I’m sorry,” I said, sounding careful and polite, “but I think there was a mistake. I was supposed to be invited, you see, I’m with the other fairies. We’re all going to bless the princess, so it’s in her best interests if you let me in.”  
The guard looked rather doubtfully at my grey attire, but then he nodded. “Jeremy,” he gestured to another guard, “take her to the king and queen and see if there has been a mistake after all.”  
As I walked through the corridors, I’m sure I saw the ornate decor of the palace, but I couldn’t describe to you now what it looked like, as I didn’t take anything in. Now I saw the day like a battle to be won it had lost its magic and I didn’t try to garner enjoyment from anything around me. There is a certain grim pleasure to be had in self pity and that was what I indulged in now instead.  
It did not feel like much time had passed before I was in the presence of the king and queen. Once again I didn’t really care. I didn’t think enough to curtsey instead of bow; improper but hopefully excusable. I was from a different species after all.  
“Yes, Jeremy, what’s wrong?” the king asked, his voice kind. The tone warmed me from the inside; I did not often hear that inflection of voice, bright as a bird singing. I was sure that the king would hear my case.   
“She thinks she should have been invited, but she doesn’t have an invitation,” said Jeremy.   
The queen wrinkled up her pretty face. “Who are you? I don’t recognise you as someone I know.”  
Couldn’t she tell from my wings?  
“I’m a fairy, your majesty. Everyone in my class was invited to bless the princess. Well, everyone except me, but I was told I would be so I don’t understand why I wasn’t.”  
“One of the older fairies who I’m friends with told me which of you to write invitations to. She must have forgotten to mention you,” said the queen.  
Of course she had.  
“If your majesty wishes to let her in after all you must write an invitation or the guards won’t let her into the ballroom,” Jeremy said.  
“Well, my dear, do you want to invite this fairy?” the king asked the queen, and I saw her brow furrow as she considered.  
“Well, I trust Mint’s judgement so maybe she missed her off the list for good reason. And it won’t exactly enhance proceedings, will it? Having this gloomy fairy there? She doesn’t look happy and colourful like the other fairies, not that it’s her fault, but it’s true nonetheless. I don’t think she should be allowed to cast a shadow over my baby’s cradle.”  
“I agree with you, wife. I’m not sure where the place for a grey fairy is, but it’s definitely not at my daughter’s christening.” The king turned towards me. “I’m sorry, but I’m sure you understand.”  
“I do understand, but I don’t agree. You know the kind thing to do would be to invite me, but you don’t want me here and are telling yourselves this is justified. I am sure your brains have already fooled both of you that this is the right thing to do, but then you cannot see my misery, my anguish, my deep despair. Maybe one day you will see. But right now the only person seriously affected by your choice is me. It’s affecting me negatively, and I am part of the world. So you are making the world worse.”  
At this point I still hoped that I could talk the king and queen round. I couldn’t believe that kind people like them could ignore my pleas. But cruel people can be kind and kind people can be cruel, until there’s almost no point in calling them kind or cruel at all.   
The king looked horrified and the queen looked shocked. Then they both looked furious. I saw the wrath on their faces as clearly as if they had suddenly burst into flames, and I realised it was because I had criticised them, told them they weren’t perfect. And too late I knew that no one ever, ever did that to the king and queen. Now they would never want to be kind to me, and they didn’t have to.  
“Well, if there’s a demon like that lurking inside you, it’s a mercy we didn’t invite you in the first place!” roared the king.  
The queen looked more sad. “We only ever try to do right, and it is not your place to correct us. I didn’t like you before, but it is clear now that you are not a good person. Please leave the palace, and do not speak to us ever again.”  
That was the moment I truly became grey inside, when I realised that not even the kindest, most benevolent people in the kingdom would help me. Instead, they made me a villain. I was layers of swirling storm clouds and a tempest was brewing within me. It could only grow.   
“You can still try but fail!” I screamed as Jeremy tugged me out of the door. His grip hurt my arm. “And that’s exactly what you’re doing right now! Well, it won’t go unpunished!”  
I ended up back outside the palace, with a door slammed in my face.   
“Onwards and upwards,” I muttered to myself.   
Sometimes it feels like emotions possess you. They are not even yours. All that was in me was a billowing rage, and nothing else.   
I had said I would deliver my blessing to Princess Aurora. So that’s what I’d do.  
“Stand aside,” I snapped at the guards in front of the main door. I used a small charm on one. It wasn’t very terrible but it terrified all the humans, most of whom had never seen magic before. They scattered before me and I felt a giddy rush of power. The storm was raging, hitting everyone in its path. But who would the lightning strike? Not even I knew.  
My anger felt like it was ripping me apart from within. I wondered if it would destroy me. A deep grey mist that was filled with darker shadows shrouded me - I must have unconsciously created it with my magic. I shoved past people from inside my storm cloud and followed the screams to the ballroom.  
The christening had already started when I burst through the door. The king and queen were sitting on large thrones by a cradle at the centre of the room. I saw the guests by the walls, standing and holding champagne glasses. My fellow fairies, however, were in a line by the cradle, so I supposed they were giving the baby their blessings. Or had been - now everyone was simply staring at me, wide-eyed and unblinking like fish. The mist drifted around me, undulating gently in different shades of grey.  
“You were not invited!” snapped the king. He sounded angry, but I saw the terror in his face even from across the room. “Leave at once!”  
I laughed. My laugh sounded uncannily cheerful. “Why so anxious?” I said, and my voice was the sound of thunder. “My only wish is to bless little Aurora here. I want to give my gift!”  
The queen touched the king’s arm and spoke quietly. “Let her, Ferdinand, otherwise she’ll never go away.”  
I barged past the other fairies, shoving them aside, until I was standing in front of the cradle. It would have been so easy to do the right thing. But that’s not a murderer’s mindset. All I thought was: why shouldn’t I do the wrong thing? And then I went even further and decided that the wrong thing was actually the right thing.  
All my life I’d been cast out, and no one had any good excuse for doing this. They’d give you loads of half-baked ones, but I could easily pick apart their arguments and pin their crimes on them. The king and queen had just done so. I’d given them so many chances to do the right thing. It would have been so painstakingly easy for them to do it. But they had not. I realised, slightly shocked, that the world wasn’t just one big story. Each person was a story, the protagonist rather than just a minor character. Each person had villains and heroes in their stories. And the king and queen were two of the villains in mine.   
And what did you do to the villains in stories? You vanquished them; saw them defeated and miserable; left them lying in the dust to bleed. This made the heroes happy.  
And if I was the hero, wasn’t that the right thing to do?  
Yes.  
I had said I would bless the princess. A curse was a blessing in a manner of speaking. It was just a bad blessing. Now I see that I was just making excuses for myself, because I had already decided that I would kill Princess Aurora and would find my way around issues in morality. At the time, it did not even feel like murder. It just felt like a right and good thing to do, rather than something nauseating. I hungered for justice. In the light I viewed it in at that moment killing Aurora was just, especially as it was the only revenge I was able to take.  
Yes. Why not kill the king and queen? I couldn’t because I didn’t know how. I only knew how to curse babies, indeed I don’t think any other fairy knew how to bless or curse anything else. That was why we had never before blessed anyone in the human world and had only come now, now there was a suitable baby available. Also, I didn’t want the king and queen to simply die a painless death.  
I wanted them to grieve.  
In my mind I was trapped in a thunderstorm, lightning crashing down all around me. Cursing Aurora was a way out, a path into the sunshine. As it turned out, it was a way out but certainly not into sunshine.  
“Here is the blessing!” I shouted against the wind and rain I imagined all around me. Adrenaline rushed through me: this was my hero’s battle. “On Aurora’s sixteenth birthday she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die!”  
The lightning had struck. There was a crash and then silence.  
In horror, everyone watched the orb of dark magic hurtle towards the baby, who was crying. But my mind had quieted.  
“Wait!” The exclamation was soft. I turned to see Lilac, a tall fairy dressed delicately in purple, raise her hand. Out of it a ball of light cascaded. “I haven’t yet given my blessing. I am not worn out, and still have plenty of magic left in me!”  
The ball of light plummeted into my dark curse. The two colours swirled about a bit before mixing into grey and descending into Princess Aurora’s heart.   
My teacher, who was skilled in prophecy, interpreted this new curse. “The Princess will not die when she pricks her finger, but she will sleep for a minimum of one hundred years before only being awoken by a prince who truly loves her, and is loved by her in return.” Her voice rose and fell, trembling. I worried there would be an earthquake. I turned and fled the palace.

It rained as I flew to who know’s where (I certainly didn’t) and the water droplets dampened the fire within me. The sky wept with me as I realised I was now a murderer, or as good as, and someone I despised. I wept for myself and what I had become, as I didn’t even feel like a hero in my own story anymore, only a villain.  
This showed the selfish pit I had descended into: I was a murderer but still only cared about myself rather than my victims. I cried still harder, and made myself feel the distress and pain of those I had hurt. A never-ending grief, a bleak future of loneliness stretched out before both me and them. I couldn’t fight against it, because I had earned it. I had dropped the stone that was crushing me to death.  
I knew I couldn’t go back to my village. There was not even a fleeting hope of peace for me there; just as there never had been. But I had unlocked the darkness within me. I could summon the storm again, if I needed to to survive. The storm brought power, and its cost was my soul. Even so, I would still choose survival over death, even if survival killed me in a different way.

I ended up living in a house of my own creation, not far from the village. No one troubled me, human or fairy. At first I was confused, but then I realised that even though I wasn’t the most powerful fairy, they were still terrified of me. I had shown no mercy as I had killed Aurora. I had been evil and evil was frightening. It was something the fairies had not encountered before and they were sensible enough not to go seeking it. They didn’t want the storm of my wrath unleashed upon them.  
I would sometimes sneak into the village at night, when everyone was asleep, and steal books from the library. I tried to seek some way of undoing the damage I had done, but could find none. Every book said the same thing: curses could not be undone. Even if Aurora emerged from her one hundred year rest, I could not save her family from their grief. A one hundred year rest was considered a curse, and you could only curse babies, so her parents could not also go to sleep with Aurora and wake up when she did. Even awaking Aurora seemed doubtful. I could bless a baby prince to love Aurora and awake her in one hundred year’s time, as I was immortal and would still be alive then, but there was no way of making Aurora fall in love with anyone if she was sleeping. Unrequited love was not true love, and therefore couldn’t lift the curse.  
Those were dark days, as every waking moment contained a demon. I heard tales of Aurora - of her kindness and beauty; how undeserving she was of her fate. It was all I could think of. Sometimes I thought that I was the monster, and at others that I had been swallowed by a monster and was still being crushed in it’s jaws. I thought monsters caused suffering rather than suffered it. If that was the case, I was confused who caused my own suffering. I supposed it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except those ten crucial seconds in which I had ruined so many peoples’ lives.

However, it isn’t in my disposition to assume one attitude for a lifetime. I had to move on, otherwise mine would be another life lost to the curse, and I would be another victim to the monster who didn’t deserve to eat people whole. After a month or so, I didn’t want to be a wreck anymore, but nobody was going to change my life for me. I deliberated for a while what to do, and at last came to a decision.  
Even down to the last moment, when I was standing outside her door, I tried to talk myself out of it.  
Don’t go back to the village, there’s nothing left for you there, I said to myself.  
Another part of my mind came up with a sharp retort. But you can’t talk, as you murdered someone and this is harmless. Besides, it has to be better than hunched over as a defeated wreck, no use to man or beast.  
I knocked on the door. It was night and the world around me was silent, but she opened it anyway.  
“Come in,” she said, even when she saw it was me. Once again, I was before the king and queen, hoping they would show me kindness. Part of me hissed that my hope was in vain, that I’d be let down again, that I might go insane again. But I knew then that despite the ten seconds changing me, I was still the same person who had hoped. I would wrestle myself out of the jaws of the monster before they chewed me up and swallowed me entirely.  
“I’m not entering with the intent to kill you,” I said reassuringly as I stepped through the doorway. “And I’m not crazily angry like I was when you last saw me, so I don’t think I’m very likely to kill you either.”   
For a second Lilac just nodded in bewilderment. “That’s nice.” Then she turned on me, her eyes blazing. “Then what the merry hell are you doing here?”  
“I had to do something. Otherwise I’d be doing nothing except wallowing, and that’s unbearable.”  
Lilac nodded. “I can’t say I particularly want to see you, but you are sad, and I think you should help sad people, even if they are almost-murderers.”  
“Just call me a murderer, it’s fine. And thank you. You are a kind person, with many admirable qualities, which is why I came to see you.”  
“What exactly do you want? It’s hard to really give you comfort because I’m not sure that I can undo the curse, so you might just have to learn to live with what you’ve done.”  
“I accept that. I wish it wasn’t the case, but I’m in no position to complain. I came because I don’t want my whole life to be worth those ten seconds. I don’t! This is not the story I want, so I’ll make one that I do. I can’t rewrite what’s already there, but I can at least change the ending. Will you help me?”  
A smile glimmered on Lilac’s face, slowly coming alive at the edges of her lips. Maybe we had defined magic wrongly, as that smile enchanted me. It relit the fire inside me, but this time it was controlled, pleasant. It would not burn down everything in its path. “I most certainly can,” Lilac said.

Forget this being my testimony, this whole story could just be a testimony to Lilac’s kindness. Together, we tried to find a way of getting Aurora to wake up after one hundred years. I already mentioned the problems with this, but we found a possible way around them.  
“We have to make Aurora fall in love before she goes to sleep, but then her lover has to still be there after one hundred years. Therefore it has to be one of us, an immortal!” I said excitedly one day, in a burst of inspiration.   
“I’d have to do it,” said Lilac. “I’m the only fairy allowed in the palace, after I tried to save Aurora.”  
So Lilac went to the palace, and she tried her hardest to fall in love with the princess. But you can’t make yourself love someone and you can’t make someone else love you either. And Lilac was very kind, but even she could not stand everyone laughing at her in the palace, as she was so very out of place, so she eventually gave up in disgust. She was very brave-hearted to try, though.

Sixteen years pass quickly for immortal souls and although Lilac and I tried everything we could possibly think of, nothing could be done. That is the truth of curses, ugly as thorns on a rose stem. They are binding.  
The day I realised that we could not save Aurora and her family, I wrote her a letter. In it, I told her that her sleep would come painlessly and instantaneously. She would not feel time passing and would wake up forever in love with the handsome prince that kissed her. The letter was a lie, but hopefully it would reassure her as much as you could be reassured in these situations. I had moved on from preventing damage to damage control.  
The day Aurora fell asleep I felt I was caught in a storm, rather than I was the storm. My actions had come back to bite me. As I thought of the misery, the anguish, the deep despair that the king and queen would be feeling, I couldn’t bear it. Lilac found me huddled in my cottage, sobbing.  
“It is sad that we could not save Aurora,” she said. “But you’ve still got life and there’s absolutely no point in just crying in your cottage for the whole of it.”  
I could scarcely speak through my sobs. “But my life is worthless. It would be better if I had not existed. All I bring is pain.”  
“No, because you are my friend and I take joy in your company. I had no friends before. You matter in my life; you’re worth something to me. You don’t bring me pain and if you had not existed I would have been lonely. If you really don’t want to cause pain, don’t be sad as it gives me pain to see you like this. Don’t lie defeated on your bed, try to be worth something to other people as well. And if you cannot live for yourself, live for me as I want you to live and you owe me for helping you out.” I did not want to dedicate my life to someone else so I wrinkled up my nose in disapproval. Lilac started laughing and I laughed with her through my tears. “Come with me,” I begged her. “Let’s go somewhere else, try to make a difference to other peoples’ lives. A good difference this time! I have to try again. My story can’t only be this.”  
Lilac smiled and nodded. I cried for a long time afterwards, but I knew that I could bear it. I was motivated by the purpose to be better, I clung to it like a life raft. I decided I would live, but I’d live for myself, on my own terms.

My wounds took a while to heal, and even now I still bear the scars. I broke, and even though I am fixed, I am not quite the same as I once was. I still feel sad sometimes. Sometimes I cry huddled on my bed in my cottage. Even so, I can enjoy a beautiful flower without feeling guilty and laugh with genuine mirth and often simply feel pure happiness. I do not know what punishment I deserve, but I wouldn’t say eternal damnation in hell. No one could call me a monster, because I’ve changed. It was true I was a monster before, but now I’ve moved beyond that monstrousness. My mind has altered and I have tried to make up for my error. You shouldn’t be punished for what you were, it is similar to punishing someone for what they will be but aren’t yet and that is obviously foolish. You should punish people for what they are right now. I am not a monster right now, just someone enjoying the world and trying to give the world joy back.  
But how much of this is simply excuses I’m making for myself? How much is unreliable? I have not experienced the fear and pain that I caused Aurora and her family to feel, but that is not unimportant. I do not know what they suffered, but it has to be thought of and remembered. We are all stories. Only once you have read each one and heard what they have to say can you decide which one is your favourite. There is no right answer to who is good or bad, better or worse. It is decided by other people. You can judge me, and your decision will be just as valid and good as anyone else’s.


End file.
